Heinrich von Kleist had gone from Dresden to Prague in 1809, and has ultimately settled in Berlin, where he edits (1810/1811) the Berliner Abendblätter.

Of Kleist's other dramas, Die Hermannsschlacht (1809) is a dramatic work of anti-Napoleonic propaganda, written as Austria and France went to war.

In it he gives vent to his hatred of his country's oppressors.

This, together with the drama The Prince of Homburg (Prinz Friedrich von Homburg oder die Schlacht bei Fehrbellin), which is considered among his best works, will be first published by Ludwig Tieck in Kleist's Hinterlassene Schriften (1821).

Robert Guiskard, a drama conceived on a grand plan, is left a fragment.

Kleist is also a master in the art of narrative, and of his Gesammelte Erzählungen (Collected Short Stories) (1810–1811), Michael Kohlhaas, in which the famous Brandenburg horse dealer in Martin Luther's day is immortalized, is one of the best German stories of its time.

The Earthquake in Chile (Das Erdbeben in Chili) and St. Cecilia, or the Power of Music (Die heilige Cäcilie oder die Gewalt der Musik) are also fine examples of Kleist's story telling as is The Marquise of O (Die Marquise von O.).

His short narratives will influence those of Kafka and the novellas of the Austrian writer, Friedrich Halm.

He also writes patriotic lyrics in the context of the Napoleonic Wars.

Captivated by the intellectual and musical accomplishments of the terminally ill Henriette Vogel, Kleist, who is himself more disheartened and embittered than ever, agrees to do her bidding and die with her, carrying out this resolution by first shooting Vogel and then himself on the shore of the Kleiner Wannsee (Little Wannsee) near Potsdam, on 21, November 1811.